Wednesday, November 14, 2007

"Hey hey, pencils down. Hollywood is a Union Town!"

Many Hollywood stars are honouring Writers Guild of America picket lines in Hollywood. Among them, Jay Leno, Conan O'Brien, Tina Fey, Julia Louis Dreyfus, Sarah Silverman and T.R. Knight. After honouring the picket line for a single day, popular daytime talk show host Ellen DeGeneres has decided to go back to work and it is creating a stir within the union movement.

The New York wing of the Writers Guild of America, actually a separate union called the WGA East, issued a statement saying DeGeneres was "not welcome" in New York and threatening to picket her show if she went ahead with plans to tape there on November 19 and 20.But DeGeneres, a member of both the Writers Guild and its sister union for TV performers, the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, drew immediate support from AFTRA and producers of her show. Both denied WGA East claims the popular TV star was breaking strike rules.

The flap came weeks after DeGeneres sparked a national uproar with a tearful on-air account of how an animal rescue group had taken back a puppy she had adopted but then given to a friend's family without the animal agency's permission.

"We find it sad that Ellen spent an entire week crying and fighting for a dog that she gave away, yet she couldn't even stand by writers for more than one day," the WGA East said.

Ouch! Maybe this strike will convince writers to produce more union-friendly content once the dispute is resolved.